Fossils discovered in Morocco indicate the creatures were still swimming in oceans 472 million years ago — about 30 million years later than thought.

Millions of years ago, the Jules Verne-esque creatures were at the top of the food chain.

“Anomalocaridids are always depicted as these fierce horrible predators, ripping up things and tearing them apart — and no doubt some of them were,” said Peter Van Roy, a palaeontologist at Yale University in New Haven Connecticut. He described the creature in the latest edition of the journal Nature.